Celebrating Diversity: Alex Counts Of The India Philanthropy Alliance On How To Build Inclusive Communities
An Interview With Vanessa Ogle
Hear from everyone. Too often, discussions are dominated by extroverts who come from majority groups. I often stop such discussions and redirect them, by having each person around the table share their views on an equal footing with everyone else (unless they choose to stay silent). This is one of many techniques to ensure that all voices are heard, and it is the one I use the most. It is especially important for decisions that are important to an organization’s or a community’s future.
In a world where diversity is often acknowledged but not always celebrated, we are taking a step forward to highlight the importance of inclusivity in building strong, vibrant communities. This series aims to explore the various facets of diversity — be it racial, cultural, gender-based, or within the differently-abled community — and understand how embracing these differences strengthens our social fabric. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Alex Counts.
Alex Counts is the Director of India Giving Day and the India Philanthropy Alliance. He is the author of Changing the World Without Losing Your Mind: Leadership Lessons from Three Decades of Social Entrepreneurship (Revised edition) (Rivertowns Books, 2021), an independent consultant to nonprofit organizations (including the India Philanthropy Alliance), is an adjunct professor at the School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University, and is a senior adviser and ambassador at large for a)plan coaching. In 1997 he established Grameen Foundation with the support of Nobel laureate Dr. Muhammad Yunus and became its President and CEO. He did so after having worked in microfinance and poverty reduction for 10 years, mostly spent living in rural Bangladesh. He ran the organization for its first 18 years and remains a friend and volunteer of the Grameen Foundation.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive into our discussion about celebrating diversity, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?
When I was growing up in New York City in the 1970s and early 1980s, something happened that impacted me a lot: I saw the movie Gandhi in 1983. I became fascinated with South Asia and with great moral leaders like Gandhi. When I went off to college, I began searching for a modern day Gandhi and I found one: Professor Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh (who would go on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006). I arranged my life to be able to work with and support him, starting from my junior year at Cornell University. I learned Bengali, got a Fulbright Scholarship to Bangladesh, and ended up living in Bangladesh for six of my first nine years after graduation. Later, I started and ran the Grameen Foundation for its first 18 years (1997–2015). I remain in touch with Professor Yunus to this day.
At some point my work shifted more towards India. I became the CEO of the American India Foundation and in that role, I founded the India Philanthropy Alliance that I run part time as its Executive Director today. Our signature program is India Giving Day, an effort to grow the quantity, quality, and ethos around U.S. philanthropy towards India.
I teach at Johns Hopkins University and before that at the University of Maryland. I have written many articles on nonprofit and mission-driven leadership, and also three books. They are: “Small Loans, Big Dreams: Grameen Bank and the Microfinance Revolution in Bangladesh, America and Beyond” (2022 Edition) (see this wonderful review of it), “Changing the World Without Losing Your Mind (Revised Edition)” and “When in Doubt, Ask for More: And 213 Other Life and Career Lessons for the Mission Driven Leader.”
Can you share an interesting or hopeful story where spending time with someone who did not look like you or who was different from you taught you something that has been useful to you?
My Fulbright year in Bangladesh (1988–89) was a revelation, but my learning really accelerated when I returned for 5 more years in the country starting in late 1992. In researching the book “Small Loans, Big Dreams,” I asked for a research assistant who could help me understand the field operations of Grameen more deeply. I was assigned a man named Muhammad Abdul Mannan Talukdar. He never graduated college but was still a brilliant person and a terrific leader. He brought me to the Grameen Bank branch that he had founded in 1987 and that branch became the focus of my book. The respect that the local people had for him was very impressive. His encyclopedic knowledge of every aspect of life in those villages was almost unbelievable. He was a great storyteller and teacher. I became close with his family, and I celebrated Eid with his extended family in his home district of Sirajganj. One of the many things he shared with me was that even very effective leaders fail to lead effectively sometimes. When that happens, it doesn’t mean they aren’t strong leaders. It just means that their approach doesn’t work everywhere. I wrote about that insight here.
You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
I have had some success in leadership, and also many setbacks. I detail a lot of that in my book “Changing the World Without Losing Your Mind.”
I have developed some effective leadership techniques, but here you ask for character traits. Three that have helped me are:
- Diligence. I was given the overwhelming assignment in 1997 of starting a nonprofit from scratch with almost no funding (just $6,000) and few of the skills and contacts that I would need to succeed. I worked extremely hard and slowly built Grameen Foundation into a large, global organization. For those first two years, all I really had as an asset was my willingness to work hard and do whatever it took to survive.
- Lifelong learner. I read a lot and more importantly, have adopted mentors at every phase of my life in an effort to develop myself. Muhammad Yunus was one, and a woman named Susan Davis was another. Susan was my third and longest tenured board chair at Grameen Foundation. I had met her when I was a Fulbrighter in Bangladesh and she worked for the Ford Foundation there. She guided me through some difficult challenges at Grameen Foundation and still advised me to this day. There have been another 5–6 mentors whom I have adopted over the years, and I stay in touch with each of them.
- Resilience/Optimism. No matter how bad the setbacks I have experienced, I have always been able to rebound after a single night’s sleep. Whether it was responding to a financial crisis at Grameen Foundation after 9/11/2001, or a failed gala dinner in 2000 that humiliated me, or the persecution of Muhammad Yunus starting in 2010 that so many of us found depressing, I have been able to recharge and project optimism to my colleagues, helping to rally myself and them to meet the challenges of the day.
Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. Can you share a personal story that highlights the impact of diversity and inclusivity in your life or career?
Certainly my first year in Bangladesh was a revelation about the diversity that existed in the world beyond my upper middle class life in New York City and my Ivy League education in upstate New York. When I was there, I decided to not retreat into the diplomatic enclave but rather fully embrace the different culture that I was thrown into. I didn’t interact with the expat community at all for months at a time, and focused on learning through cultural, organizational, and linguistic immersion. That showed a degree of respect for the culture that led many to fully include me in the workings of Grameen, and I was treated as an insider in what could sometimes be a rather insular culture. I learned what it was like to be a minority of one and an outsider (albeit a privileged one), who made relentless efforts to build bridges, efforts that were often reciprocated. I developed a fascination with all things Bengali, and I shared my own experiences with my new friends and colleagues. Many of them remain friends to this day, nearly 40 years later.
How do you approach and manage the challenges that arise when working towards creating more inclusive communities?
The challenges I find when working towards inclusive communities, especially within organizations, center around people wanting to do what is safe and what is familiar to them. (I fall into this trap myself at times.) To combat this, I encourage people to get outside their comfort zone and take risks. One of my most important management philosophies is this: as important as it is to reward success within organizations, it is just as important, at times, to reward failure. If someone stretches themselves and fails, but they do the hard work to understand why they failed, they have become a much stronger professional and colleague as a result. So it is appropriate to reward them for their growth. This helps people become less risk averse, and when that happens, real magic can happen within organizations. I also believe in taking risks in everyday conversations with people who are different than you are, asking about and sharing personal information that can open doors and open hearts.
In terms of community organizing, I have adopted many of the techniques I saw Mannan and others use in bringing Grameen Bank to remote Bangladeshi villages. They shared the lives of the poor, treated them respectfully, and were always intentional about seeking out the most marginalized and prioritizing them, putting into practice the notion of “putting the last first” that was popularized by development thinker Robert Chambers.
What innovative strategies or initiatives have you implemented or observed that effectively promote the importance of diversity and inclusivity?
One of the things I did at Grameen Foundation was that I organized regular meetings with employees of all levels where I asked them to share with me what was on their minds about the organization, especially their concerns, complaints, and suggestions. I told them that there would be no negative consequences for sharing negative views.
While many leaders keep the deliberations of their governing bodies secret from their staff members, I took the opposite approach. I shared my CEO’s report to the board with all employees and allowed any employee who was in the city where we held board meetings to attend them so they could listen in. They felt more included in the governance of their organization than in any other organization they had ever been associated with. I regularly had staff members present to the full board in order to showcase them and promote mutual understanding about the respective roles of the board and the professional staff.
When chairing boards, I always encouraged everyone to “speak their minds and vote their consciences” even if they were a minority of one. This became a core element of my philosophy of governance and also leadership. Dissent must be encouraged to avoid groupthink, and the damaging mistakes that can result from it. Dissent is most likely to come from those with nontraditional backgrounds, assuming you can create an environment where they feel comfortable speaking up. I always tried to create those environments.
In your opinion, what are the key elements that make a community truly inclusive, and how can these be fostered on a larger scale?
Diversity without inclusion can lead to tokenism, and a situation where the person in the minority feels that they need to conform to the dominant culture. In this, most of the benefits of diversity are lost. So, my view is that rather than having the newcomer from a different background feel they need to adapt to the culture, I try to turn it around and say that we invite more diverse candidates in to help further evolve our culture, even if it is good already. Their differences can be celebrated and embraced, rather than snuffed out. The notion of an “ever-evolving” culture avoids the traps of complacency and insularity.
Based on your experience and research, can you please share “5 Ways We Can Build Inclusive Communities”?
Here are five priorities:
- Emphasize mission/community benefits through improved decision-making, not just better representation. I always emphasize to groups that I am involved in that improving diversity is not simply to appear less homogenous to outsiders. Rather, it is about having a team in place that can make better decisions by virtue of drawing on more varied life experiences. This tends to encourage minority viewpoints to be aired and listened to. I also emphasize that diversity should not be limited to gender and race, as important as those are (especially in the United States), and extend it to age, religion (or lack thereof), political ideology, and worldview. We have taken a special interest in the India Philanthropy Alliance in making our organizations more youth friendly.
- Hear from everyone. Too often, discussions are dominated by extroverts who come from majority groups. I often stop such discussions and redirect them, by having each person around the table share their views on an equal footing with everyone else (unless they choose to stay silent). This is one of many techniques to ensure that all voices are heard, and it is the one I use the most. It is especially important for decisions that are important to an organization’s or a community’s future.
- Practice “radical welcome.” When including someone new into a community, there is an opportunity to go far beyond the normal, perfunctory welcome to something that makes a newcomer feel that they can truly be themselves from day one. To describe this, I use the term “radical welcome,” which I learned from my mentor Susan Davis and wrote about here. As mentioned in my short article, it goes beyond invitation and inclusion, and is practiced by essentially saying to a newcomer, “Bring your culture, your voice, your whole self — we want to engage in [a] truly mutual relationship.” I try to practice this approach to inclusion in the groups I participate in and lead, including the India Philanthropy Alliance.
- Be vulnerable by sharing leadership mistakes. Many leaders like to appear invulnerable and inerrant. I suppose they feel this inspires confidence. I take a different approach. I regularly share with the people I lead the worst mistakes I have made and what they have cost me and the organizations I have led. It shows that mistakes are OK as long as you learn from them, and that accountability and honesty are paramount, and that leadership is not exempt.
- Share public representation roles. Some leaders do everything they can to build their own brand and make it one and the same with the organizations they lead. They also probably believe that no one is better at communicating with the public than they are. My view and approach are different. I think it is important for an organization to showcase a diversity of spokespeople. First, it should be more than a single person. This signals to the public that the organization has depth and by virtue of that, strength and resilience. Second, by having spokespeople who come from different backgrounds than the leader, the organization can showcase that its team is not just diverse but also empowered and valued. Third, it takes some pressure off the leader while helping other leaders and team members get more confident in their roles as spokespeople.
How do you measure the impact and success of diversity and inclusion efforts, and what changes have you seen as a result of these initiatives?
I am a big fan of doing anonymous polls of people in an organization or community to assess the culture and related trends. This is where you get the truest feedback. I augment this by having unstructured conversations with employees and community members in neutral locations and informal settings. All of this gives me great feedback, even if it is sometimes unsettling. Leadership teams that I have been a part of can use this feedback to respond through concrete actions that build on areas of strength and address concerns and complaints.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
The movement I am trying to start relates to redefining philanthropy, particularly as it relates to tapping into the wealth of talent and financial resources among Indian Americans to combat major issues of poverty, ill-health, poor education, and environmental degradation in India. Through India Giving Day, we are aiming to triple the amount of philanthropy going from the U.S. to India, while also improving the impact and making giving more joyful and less transactional. If this mindset change can set in, we could see $2 billion in additional giving each year, the equivalent of adding a second Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and be a model to other prosperous groups, including diasporas elsewhere, to feel a sense of agency and possibility in improving society.
Thank you for the time you spent sharing these fantastic insights. We wish you continued success in your great work!
About The Interviewer: Vanessa Ogle is an entrepreneur, inventor, writer, and singer/songwriter. She is best known as the founder of Enseo which she and her team grew into one of the largest out-of-home media and connected networks in the world, serving more than 100,000,000 people annually. Vanessa’s talent in building world-class leadership teams focused on diversity, a culture of service, and innovation through inclusion resulted in amazing partnerships and customer relationships. She collaborated with the world’s leading technology and content companies such as Netflix, Amazon, HBO, and Dish Networks to bring innovative solutions to the hospitality industry. Enseo has also held an exclusive contract to provide movies to the entire U.S. armed forces for almost 15 years. Vanessa and her team’s relentless innovation resulted in120+ U.S. Patents. Her favorite product is the MadeSafe solution for hotel workers as well as students and children in their K-12 classrooms. Accolades include: #15 on FAST 100, 50 Fastest Growing Women-Owned 2018–2020, Entrepreneur 360 Best Companies 2018–2020, not to mention the Inc. 500 and then another six times on the Inc. 5000. Vanessa was personally honored with Inc. 100 Female Founder’s Award, Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and Enterprising Women of the Year. Vanessa now spends her time enjoying her children, sharing stories to inspire and give hope through articles and speaking engagements. entrepreneurs-to-be with her articles including her LinkedIN newsletter Unplugged. In her spare time she writes music with her husband Paul as the band HigherHill, teaches surfing clinics, and trains dogs.
Please connect with Vanessa here on linkedin and subscribe to her newsletter Unplugged as well as follow her on Substack.
Celebrating Diversity: Alex Counts Of The India Philanthropy Alliance On How To Build Inclusive… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.